The Window 1907

Odilon Redon made this painting of a window with oil on canvas. The colors are muted, like they’ve aged over time, all browns and blues. The paint is thick and chalky, like it was applied with a palette knife, a bit rough. I can imagine Redon standing in front of the canvas, squinting, trying to capture the light filtering through the stained glass, building up layers of paint. The rose window looms overhead, full of jewel-toned light. The painting has a dreamlike quality, as though we’re seeing the window through a veil. It’s not just a window, it's a portal. There’s a figure at the base of the composition, a sculpture or a memory of one perhaps. Redon knew all about the French Romantics like Delacroix, he would have gone to see their work. He learned from them, even though he developed his own original symbolic language. Artists are always in conversation this way, across generations. What a beautiful thing!